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Wednesday, 23 April 2014

Anzac Day: Remembering

Gus Mahoney, my great-grandfather.

What does Anzac Day mean to me? It's a time for remembering our forebears. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my great-grandfather Joseph (Gus) Mahoney fought in France before being shot in the hip in September 1918.

Gus was a farm labourer from Newlands and according to family was a good shot with a rifle, probably as a result of handling them on the farm. Following basic training at Trentham Army Camp (including a brief hospitalisation for measles) Gus was assigned to the New Zealand Rifles Brigade (NZRB) and sent off to Europe in 1916.

We don't have an exact record of where Gus fought, but we do know the company he served in was part of action in the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele. He was wounded in September 1918, right before the end of the war, and sent to England to recover before coming home to New Zealand in 1919.